


On the Other Side of This Hill (Days Go by Remix)

by Laura



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura/pseuds/Laura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 212 days since New York. Bruce has counted them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Other Side of This Hill (Days Go by Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyjupiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Beyond Mountains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/500864) by [heyjupiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter). 



> Thanks to M for the beta. All remaining mistakes are mine.

On day three after New York, he takes off again. The destination doesn’t matter; it’s the leaving that counts.

“For a genius, you’re incredibly stupid,” Tony says, but that’s all. He hands him a keycard, and goes back to work. There’s grease spattered up his arms, dark circles under his eyes, and bruises just about everywhere Bruce can see. There are probably bruises in places he can’t, and Bruce aches, for a second, with the want to look at them, too — maybe to do more than that.

He leaves without saying goodbye. Goes back to Kolkata, to the heat and the families and the life he’d built. Moves on after only a few weeks, because those things aren’t his now — maybe never were. He heads to Haiti, and then Bangladesh. But he’s uncomfortable in his skin these days. Which figures. He finally gets some control over the other guy, and the rest of him wants to have an existential crisis.

There are kids he can’t save everywhere he goes, and aliens out to destroy the earth, and actual viking gods (or close enough) with technology he can only dream of. Most nights, he can’t sleep, lies awake no matter where he is, thinking about it all, as if he doesn’t already know where the solutions are.

***

He's in New York by day 93. Uses his keycard, and finds Tony where he left him, arms-deep in a machine, t-shirt damp with sweat and clinging to his back.

“Everywhere I've been recently, there are people who can do exactly what I can -- at least when I’m there. Who can do it better than I can, probably,” he says, though Tony hasn’t asked. “Only one place I can make real progress. Because of the — you know. You have some pretty cool stuff here. If I can stay, that is.”

Tony puts his hands behind his back and stretches. He looks exponentially better than he did when Bruce left, though there’s still grease smudges on his skin. “Like twenty-three kinds of security to get in here, man. You didn’t even have to knock. I think that means you can stay.”

“Pepper won't mind?” If Bruce were Pepper, he thinks he probably would, but Tony just shakes his head.

“I think the novelty of regular near-death experiences wore off. She wanted — you know. Something a bit more stable.” Bruce opens his mouth, for an apology or something just as meaningless, but Tony cuts him off. “It’s fine. We were always headed there. But this way she still likes me enough to stay in my life.”

Bruce Nods. There’s an awkward silence, until he looks at what Tony’s working on. “You upgrading the suit?”

“More firepower. I’m tired of only being able to destroy small cities, you know?”

“Of course.” And it’s easy, so easy to fall into rhythm with him. Bruce steps in closer, not really meaning to. “You can do awesome stuff here. I wanna do that.”

“That’s why I like you.” Tony reaches out, and Bruce only flinches a little when his fingers curl into his jacket. “And speaking of awesome stuff,” he says. Then he leans in and kisses him. Bruce doesn’t pull away.

***

It’s day 114 when he lets Tony suck him off. Twenty days they’ve been arguing about it — or Bruce stayed quiet, and Tony intermittently made terrible jokes about him being like some guy in Buffy who had sex and lost his soul, or told him it wasn’t a risk, and he would be fine, and what were they gonna do? Just keep letting Tony have all the fun? And then Tony maybe got a bit sidetracked by all the fun he was having, until the next time.

Until eventually there are some killer robots, and the other guy helps out a lot, and nobody gets hurt who shouldn’t. And when they get back, Tony says, “Come on. we can do this,” and why the fuck not, Bruce thinks, if killer robots are a thing now.

Bruce is primed to enjoy a blowjob from anyone. It's been years with nothing but his hand, and that always expediency rather than pleasure, a necessary release when he couldn’t hold back. But even so, he knows it’s not just that. Tony’s good: clever mouth and strong hands, a weirdly on-point instinct for knowing just how to make Bruce crazy. By the end, Bruce is shaky and inarticulate with it all, more than a little overwhelmed. And Tony stubbornly stays Tony. Insufferable and pathologically incapable of shutting up, and more than Bruce has wanted in a really long time.

“See, and you didn’t turn into a raging monster and kill me,” Tony says, stretched out on the bed, like he didn’t just take Bruce to pieces. “I don’t know if I should be offended or not. Do you think you would have, if you’d enjoyed it more?”

“I think I might if you don’t stop talking,” Bruce says. Tony laughs, warm and open, and the smile stays as he tugs Bruce towards him.

***

On day 206, Tony goes missing. 

“He fell out of the sky somewhere over Utah,” Fury says, calm, like he always is. Bruce doesn’t punch him in the face, but he regrets it — all the more when Fury says he can’t go on the rescue mission. “I kinda want Utah left intact. You’ll forgive me if I think sending you there right now makes that less likely.”

Steve and Natasha take a plane to go find him. Bruce isn’t at all sure he forgives Fury, but maybe he’s grateful. Tony will be, too, when he gets back and finds Stark Tower still standing. For the first time in a long while, he almost wants the other guy to come out. It would be easier — to destroy and not think. But he remembers Fury: the doubt that Bruce had any control, or maybe more accurately, the certainty that he didn’t. A better person would hold it together for Tony, but Bruce has never been much of a better person.

He doesn't think about what might happen if Tony doesn't come back.

***

Day 211 Tony limps through the door, half held up by Steve. He's beat up all to hell, though he’s able to complain in minute detail about all the many ways he’s in pain, so it can’t be as bad as it looks.

“You probably deserved it,” Bruce says, when Steve and Natasha leave, and Tony's crawled into bed.

“I was defending our nation from terrorists,” Tony says. “Terrorists are bad, if you hadn't heard. I’m a hero. Again.”

“Your need for validation is a psychological condition. You know that, right?” He slides Tony’s t-shirt up, because these days he gets to see all the bruises. There’s a lot to see this time; there’s a spike of rage that might be his, might be the other guy’s. Bruce ruthlessly ignores it, and puts his mouth against one of the less ugly bruises on Tony’s chest. “I’m thinking sex is out for a while.”

He feels as well as hears the sound of discontent that rumbles through Tony's chest. “You’re the worst person in the world to come home to,” Tony says, and Bruce looks up, then, taken off guard for no good reason.

“I’m not having a moment here,” Tony says. “Shut up.”

Bruce doesn’t argue, just settles down beside him, not quite touching, but close enough that he could.

“Go to sleep,” he says, and Tony does.

Later, Bruce dreams of Tony’s body, bruised and bloody and very much dead. He wakes up alone and shaking, and there’s a monster inside that very much wants out. He digs his nails into his palms until he draws blood; concentrates on breathing like it’s a new skill he’s learning.

Eventually, he makes it to his feet. His voice is almost steady when he asks Jarvis where Tony is, and he almost doesn’t run to the roof when he gets his answer.

Tony’s in the pool, trying to work some of the stiffness out, probably. In the dim light up here, he looks worse than he did before, but he’s clearly alive, so there’s that. Bruce swallows, tries to smile.

“Hey,” he says, and Tony lifts his head, his own smile half-forming and then disappearing, presumably chased off by whatever he sees on Bruce’s face.

“Okay,” he says. “Come here.”

Bruce goes to him; he has enough logic left to strip his boxers and t-shirt off as he does. He steps into the water and tries to let it clean the nightmare away, or maybe the feeling it left. Tony wraps an arm around him, grimacing but not complaining. He stays quiet, because sometimes he knows that’s what Bruce needs.

“It’s been 211 days since New York,” Bruce says finally. “Or 212, I guess. It’s Friday now.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, in perfectly understandable confusion. “I suppose it is,” he says, after a second. “Is there a reason that’s made you look like that? If it’s some kind of prophesy, you should know I don’t believe in that.”

“I like to count the days. Between, you know — now and whatever the last really shitty thing was. 212 days ago was the last one.”

“Do we get a prize for making it to a year? If it's steak knives, I'not interested. Hey—“ he tangles a hand in Bruce’s hair, holds him still. “I was kidding. But you gotta help me out here.”

“It’s just — before, it was just counting days.” Bruce doesn’t know how to explain it, but he remembers before, going one day to the next. Day after day of not fucking up, nothing much else to say. A nice memory here or there — a night in a river when he thought he could be someone new, a teenage kid who was a friend of sorts, people who didn’t know him but who accepted his help anyway. But nothing else. “Counting days since the last shitty thing. This time it’s different. 212 days, and most of them have been good.”

Tony’s fingers smooth along the back of Bruce’s neck. “And that’s — what is that, exactly?”

“Terrifying, you idiot. I break things. Maybe you hadn’t noticed. And if you — if you weren’t here, if you hadn't come back, maybe I’d break a lot more. Maybe this is bad, and I just don't know it yet.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Tony punches him in the shoulder. Hard. “My God,” he says. “I can’t believe _you_ were lecturing _me_ about having a psychological condition. This is good. This is going to be good for as long as we want it to be, because we’re actual, honest-to-god geniuses. And we've got _Natasha_ on our side. At the very least it’s going to be good until a crazed super villain ends the world, and at that point, we’re going to have bigger things to worry about. Or not, as the case may be.”

Bruce laughs, in spite of himself. “This is the least comforting pep talk I’ve ever heard.”

“Whatever. You’re no judge of anything. This is why you don’t talk about your feelings much, right? It’s so people think you’re mysterious and not _insane_.”

“I’m certainly never discussing them with you again,” Bruce says, but Tony’s still keeping him close, still stroking his neck. That part is pretty comforting.

“This is good,” Tony says again, quiet this time. Like he means it. “You’re allowed to have good things. You fucking deserve them.” He grins, bright and sure. “And I was there. Some of those days have been _really_ good. The day with the hot tub and the —“

Bruce kisses him into silence. Then just kisses him, because he can still do that. Because Tony is here, and it’s been 212 days since the last really bad thing.


End file.
